11 NIT/REC Directors removed by the HRD Ministry

In a swooping country wide move, the HRD ministry has removed the directors of 11 NITs (previously named RECs) across the country citing an irregular process of appointment by the previous government. The present HRD ministry under Mr. Arjun Singh calls this a detoxification drive against the misdeeds of the previous government whose HRD ministry was led by Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi.

As a fallout of this action, the director of my alma-mater REC Jalandhar (now named NIT Jalandhar), Dr. Pramod S Mehta has also been removed. Tanmay Mukherji, my senior at college, writes his opinion on the event at our online RECJ/NITJ forum.

Tanmay has some good non-subjective thoughts on the subject:

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b) Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi might have lots of detractors, but one act of his which has been welcomed by all students in NITs has been conversion of these colleges from RECs to NITs. A process which involved complete changeover in the academic framework in line with what has been well established in the IITs. Placing Directors after picking them from there respective IITs and deputing them for 5 years to turn around these colleges.

[…]

c) All these Directors were offered a 5 year contract and were put on deputation from their respective institutes (mostly IITs ) for this task. They have a well documented contract to this effect. The only fact that the previous HRD Minister forgot to get these selections approved from his own Cabinet committee cannot be taken as a ground for terminating their services and scoring political “Brownie points”.

[…]

d) If the HRD Ministry was really serious about the welfare of Technical education in the country they would have first tried to regularise this process of selection by taking the necessary Cabinet clearances. If required, could have assessed the calibre of the people manning these top posts and then taken a step. A sweeping action across the country can only stall the total academic process across all these NITs.